


the seventh diminished

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Starshine Over Beach City: Moments from Steven Universe [26]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Music, Post-Episode: s06e10 Prickly Pair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 10:34:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22968544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: Steven used to sing.  Used to breathe music.  It’s harder than it once was.
Series: Starshine Over Beach City: Moments from Steven Universe [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1523993
Comments: 13
Kudos: 129
Collections: Steven Universe Completed Recommended Reads





	the seventh diminished

Fingers hesitant, clumsy, foreign on the neck. The pads of his fingertips settle against dust-muted strings. He blows the largest clumps of dust away with a few forced breaths. **  
**

He tunes the guitar string by string, wincing at the flatness, but his grimace fades as each note slowly comes back to itself. Maybe he can do this again. Maybe it’ll help.

A few experimental plucks with an old pick, one of his dad’s. He shifts positions, adjusting the guitar cradled carefully in his lap, and tries again. Scales pour out of his hands, empty patterns carrying sound and nothing more. Major, minor, pentatonic. Their voices hum and linger, for a little while.

He knows this. He knows music. Hasn’t he always lived it, breathed it, felt it woven into his bones and skin? Once his mouth moved with a dozen, a hundred songs in every sunrise, notes murmured under his breath as he dressed for the day, nonsense songs in the kitchen, ballads belted in the shower. There was a whole year he considered his ukulele his best friend, in the days before they trusted him on missions, the days before Connie and Lars and Sadie and the cool kids. Pearl used to complain about the songs scribbled on scraps and left all over the house.

Steven closes his eyes, his head hanging, fingers remembering their work. The notes are correct in his ears, precise despite his lack of practice, but they are meaningless. Just numbers to count. 

He scowls. Practice is useful, he knows that, but it isn’t meant for this. It isn’t meant to undo this… _thing_ , vast and yawning and heavy in his chest. He tries to breathe around its immenseness, and he wonders if he’s suffocating. 

Breathing shouldn’t _hurt_.

He swallows through it, his mouth flattened into a stark line, and he keeps playing. His fingers trace a pattern, delicate measures filling with sound, making the shape of a song. Or its shadow, he isn’t sure. He tries to harmonize with it, his voice rough in his throat like gravel. 

He used to wish for a rich baritone voice, or a tenor smooth and soaring, or an alto warm and steady. He realizes now he only wanted what he didn’t have. He reaches, hesitantly, for a high note, cringes at the cracking result. His throat forgets itself.

The delicate notes slip away, replaced by grimmer sounds, minor chords, tension thick and taut in every measure. He plays all over the neck, a few bars here, half a phrase there. He muddles through a minute of “The Working Dead” before it peters out. Nothing sticks. The notes sit, abandoned, in the silence.

This used to be easy. It used to be natural. The thought eats at him.

He used to sit with his feet swinging over the end of his bed, plucking at his ukulele. He used to set up his amp or his drum kit on the warp and pretend he was playing to a sold-out crowd, the Gems and his dad in the front row, stars in their eyes. He used to lie on his back in the sand with his eyes closed, his ukulele nestled against his chest, songs spilling out of his hands and mouth faster than he could name them.

It wasn’t just himself who knew how to do this: once, he used to play with other people. Silly songs with Connie in the ocean breeze, her mouth quirked in concentration as the bow slid gracefully along the strings. Rock riffs with Sadie Killer and the Suspects before they made it big, before he got too busy, too needed elsewhere. Ukulele with Peridot in the heady summer nights at the barn, Steven and the Crystal Gems performing on the beach, Garnet and Stevonnie singing in a quiet place. He remembers songs in clacking trains with Amethyst, Pearl’s voice aching and lovely. 

And before all of them, before all of _this_ , there were the songs with his dad, sitting back to back against each other in the van. He remembers the feeling of his head resting against Greg’s flowing locks, their voices and their playing melding in a familiar fusion long before Steven ever knew his powers.

But Dad’s different now, his long hair gone, wearing wariness in his eyes behind a tired smile. And then there’s the way he looks at Steven – like he’s looking at a _stranger_ –

Breathe, breathe. A rhythm of its own, a broken time signature jagged and raw. His fingers throb, the hard-won callouses of younger years soft and useless now. It’s been so long. Too long. He keeps playing, keeps breathing, keeps trying not to cry.

A hum fills the air, nothing voiced in his throat or guitar, but the strings resonate with it regardless. _No._ He fights against the rising pink glow in his skin, fights the thin shimmering whine ringing in his ears. His fingers stumble on the frets. Discordant sounds squeal out of the guitar’s body, filling the empty air with a terrible noise.

“ _Stop it,_ ” he gasps. _“Stop it, stop it, stop –”_

His pink hands tremble on the guitar, glowing in his true color, _her_ color. They’re pink against the wood and strings, shaking too hard to try and play – but that’s all right, he’s breathing too hard to try and sing – he can’t open his mouth, he shouldn’t, not unless he wants to hurt someone, not unless he wants to _scream_ –

He shoves the guitar away from himself before he breaks it. It lands on the floor with a clatter and an angry twang, the high E string snapping but the rest of the guitar remaining intact. The shimmering sound in his ears fades, his heartbeat quiets, and when he raises his hands, they’re only flesh and blood again. He’s only Steven. 

Whatever that means.

He sits quietly. Folds his hands and their throbbing fingertips together, fingers lacing in his lap. He stares at nothing in particular. The fallen guitar stares back at him, its broken string bent at a weird angle, still vibrating slightly.

He gets to his feet and roughly picks up the guitar. He knows he has more strings somewhere. Knows that even if he didn’t, it’d be just a few taps on his phone and more would be on the way. They’re simple to replace, nothing he hasn’t done a dozen times before.

The weight in his chest sinks deeper. The broken string coils against his straining hand, another reminder of his mistakes.

He leans the guitar against the wall in a corner of his room, and the dust grows thicker.

**Author's Note:**

> Diminished chords are marked by providing significant tension in a piece of music, and are often used to highlight strong emotions such as anger and despair.
> 
> (Also who's going nuts waiting for more SUF next week?)


End file.
